Gregarius » MAKE Magazine » December 30, 2007

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Best of CRAFT

Posted: December 30th, 2007, 9:30pm CST
Here are some of my favorite posts from the CRAFT blog this week:
- Trombone Cozy - Link.
- Knit Lobster - Link.
- Fun with Casting Resin - Link.
- Cassette Tape Business Card Case - Link.
- HOW TO - Flat Pack Desk - Link.
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Figure mods at ComicCon '07

Posted: December 30th, 2007, 4:00pm CST
Cory Doctorow posted (to Boing Boing) an image and link to his Flickr set of photos he took at ComicCon of action figure modders and their cool creations.

Action figures set - Link

Related:
- Mashing up your own action figures - Link
- Hand-made action figures... made LIVE! - Link
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Hacked Bop-it tambourine

Posted: December 30th, 2007, 11:00am CST

Some classmates (Byron Lahey and Ryan Brotman) and I just finished up a project where we used wireless handheld electronic devices to control Max/MSP instruments. It's called sGloTaT (sensor Glow-object Trumpet and Tambourine):
The sGloTaT sonic environment allows participants to originate sound by moving physical objects. It encourages novice users to play by naturally gesturing with two tangible user interface objects emulating a trumpet and tambourine. In this sound space, movements by the users generate visual feedback projected on the floor in the form of a three-dimensional rendering of a cone.
Byron built one of the objects from polycarbonate tubing, and I hacked a Bop-it toy for the other controller. Both contain an Arduino mini, BlueSmiRF, and a two-axis accelerometer. The glowing and IR-reflective tape helps the objects be sensed by our motion tracking infrastructure in the SMALLab environment at Arizona State University. You can watch the overview video, download our paper, and look at photos of the objects in progress - Link.

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HOW TO - Make a pack flat plywood desk

Posted: December 30th, 2007, 10:00am CST

Drocko writes -
Recently I was in the market for a new desk.

I wanted to make a desk that was able to be disassembled and packed flat, made from few and easily obtainable supplies with simple tools.

The desk can be created from the following supplies:
1 4'x8'x3/4" A-1 plywood sheet
2 4' 3/8" steel rod
2 3/8" nuts
2 3/8" wingnuts
8 washers
8 screws
Some woodglue

You will need the following tools:
Tape measure
Circular saw (for other saw for making large cuts in the plywood)
Screwdriver
Coping saw (for cutting the notches)
Several clamps

I also recommend a squaring device such as a speed square.
HOW TO - Make a pack flat plywood desk - Link.

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Hacking the Western Digital MyBook World Edition

Posted: December 30th, 2007, 5:00am CST

Makefan writes -
This page provides information on how to hack your MyBook World Edition, so as you can improve performance and add new features. MyBook is powered by ARM9 microprocessor, it has 32MB of SDRAM and boots from internal hard drive. The system partition has 2.8GB (only 260 MB is occupied). This means that you have a lot of resources for various improvements.
Hacking the Western Digital MyBook World Edition - Link.

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Pipe robot doesn't smoke a pipe

Posted: December 30th, 2007, 5:00am CST

This robot, designed by Jeff Terrell consists of dense PVC plastic piping for the body, its head moves 180 degrees left and right, and a strip of red LEDs under his mouth light up when it is speaking. The bot also uses a head mounted video camera and tracking software to integrate computer vision. We just hope that it's AI isn't too good so that it makes its way back to the sewers to find the rest of its pipe-made body.

My Robot Project - Link [via]
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Phone line controller

Posted: December 30th, 2007, 2:00am CST

Trax writes -
It might be "yet another" «device» controller that operates over phone-line, but this one works for sure :) The task was to build a device that connects to the phone line and has a relay as an output switch. It should also sense if the connected «consumer» is turned-on or off and report to the administrator at the other end of the phone line. The administrator would then call-in the device, log in with the password, and check the state of «consumer», turn it on or off, change password or some other settings. Current version has only one relay.
Phone line controller - Link.

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